Slam!

I love my flat. I really do. But I hate my neighbours. Apparently, the only way they know to close a door is to SLAM it shut REALLY LOUDLY, every single friggin time. There must be at least 5 people staying in that unit across from mine who come home (or leave) at different times everyday thus antagonising me several times a day. Each time, the loud bang resounds through my flat and rattles the unbelievably thin walls.

Once, a lady from said unit came to knock on my door to complain that my TV was too loud. I told her that I wasn't watching TV and that I'd only been playing songs on my computer. I even invited her to step in to ascertain that the sound had not come from my flat. Satisfied that I was not the inconsiderate one, she smiled and left. Later that evening, she found out where the TV sound was really coming from. Having failed to speak to the culprit, she then proceeded to get even by annoying the hell out of the loud TV fellow. This was done by creating an even bigger racket which involved stomping up and down the stairs in her flat (hers is a duplex) and knocking something which I assumed was a broom against her walls and floor, all the while oblivious to the fact that instead of ironing out the initial problem, she had now become part of the problem, if not an even bigger one. To be honest the TV hadn't bothered me that much. Yes, it was loud, but not to the point of being a disturbance. Door-slamming-and-broom-knocking lady, on the other hand, was a different story. Obviously subtle was not a word in her dictionary.

Yes, you guessed it. The door has just been slammed again.

Evening

I stepped out of the office today at 4:40pm. It was still light and the kindergarten and primary school students had just finished for the day and were making their way to the school gate. As I stepped outside the building, I noticed that the cherry blossom trees were already budding. There were tiny white buds on all over the trees. Ahh… spring!

Familiar students waved at me and yelled out "Bye Michelle!" with big grins on their faces. The older students were going to the canteen for their dinner. The little ones were hopping on along behind their parents who were carrying their jackets and school bags. It was a surprisingly warm day and I could feel a warm breeze blowing. There was a lot of activity near the school gate as students walked in and out and played nearby while waiting for their parents. Some parents stood around to wait for their little ones to come out. Along the road right outside, cars were double parked. I could hear students talking and laughing and calling out to one another in the distance and all around me. The day was winding down as evening set in. People were starting to relax, grannies were chatting in small groups with their toddler grandchildren in tow, older children were coming out to play.

As I walked back to my flat, a toddler in the arms of her nanny waved down at me from the window, I waved back. On the ground floor, the men who spent the day at the mahjong table at the small mahjong centre were filing out, no doubt going home for dinner. The little girl whose name I know not, but who waves at me whenever she sees me, was sitting next to her granny who never fails to smile at me. Little girl waved at me the moment she caught sight of me. I smiled, tilted my head and waved back. There was a bounce in my step as I walked up the 5 floors up to my flat. It was a beautiful evening.

Even now, as I'm sitting comfortably with a cup of coffee and typing incessantly away on my computer, I can hear the pleasant sounds of the evening echoing from downstairs all the way up to my flat on the top floor and I can't help but smile. Evening is absolutely my favourite time of the day.

Excuse me, are you a native speaker?

When I read the latest entry by Sharon Bakar in Bibliobibuli, one of her blogs of which I'm a follower, a very interesting question which had always been at the back of my mind sprang forward. It may or may not be a dilemma for any average Malaysian, but it certainly is for me. Being a Malaysian, I practically grew up speaking 3 languages, but which one of it am I a native of?

As children, my sisters and I were looked after by my maternal grandmother (since mum and dad had to work) with whom we spoke mostly in Cantonese. Our command of the language was largely conversational. Any technical terms or poetic structures would've been lost on us. It did help though, that we were always rooted in front of the television at 6pm to catch the TVB drama serials from Hong Kong (which I believe was a common phenomenon in most Chinese households in Malaysia). That was where I picked up my occasional intelligent utterings in Cantonese, the language in which the level of my proficiency would otherwise have been pretty basic.

At the time, the medium of education in school was Bahasa Malaysia (which was called Bahasa Melayu for a while sometime during my secondary school years). In primary, we learned the basic vocabulary but we never used it much at home. In secondary, it got more complex and difficult, but still, we didn't feel the need to use it much. I'm not proud to say that my ability in grasping the national language was slightly below average. I didn't appreciate the language as much as I should have and the reason for using it at all was purely academic. In order to pass the SPM (the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, a national exam every Form 5 student has to sit for), you'd have to pass BM. So by the time I got to Form 5, I could write, but in a casual conversation, I'd have a problem uttering a decent sentence in complete BM, especially if fluency was of the essense. I was more adept at the bahasa rojak, a sentence made up of a healthy mix of English and basic Malay words and sometimes even a word or two of Cantonese (or Hokkien) when the need arose.

Back in our own home (whenever we weren't at granny's), mum and dad, who went to school when subjects were being taught in the Queen's English were particular about us speaking in proper English and made it essential in our household. I remember when we were still in primary school, mum used to immediately correct us whenever we got our tenses wrong or added a 'lah' at the end our sentences much too often. As we grew older, that stopped, and I believe that was when the problem began. Bahasa rojak frequently found its way into my conversations with friends (and sometimes even with my sisters) and my "proper" English gradually turned into Manglish.

This identity crisis where language is concerned, had always been a question but it was never a problem, well at least not until I decided to be an ESL teacher. If you've ever tried applying for a position as an ESL teacher in a foreign country where English is not widely spoken, like China or Korea, you'd know that one of the most important criterias is that you need to be a native speaker of English, in brackets, from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Now I don't hail from any of these countries. I'm Asian, and granted, my English is not perfect (so that post really hit a chord!), I still struggle with it sometimes, but I grew up speaking the language at home. It goes without saying that it's naturally the default language in my daily life. I'd pick up a copy of the New Straits Times as opposed to a copy of the Berita Harian or the Nanyang Siang Pau, I'd read the English version of the manual of my new mobile phone, I'd choose to view the website in English whenever I wanted to do online banking, I sms, email and Facebook in English AND I blog in English. You get the picture. So am I a native then? Can I answer to an ad that says "Native speakers only"? And if English is not my native language, what is?

I'm of Chinese descent but never studied Chinese in school. I speak in Cantonese but read and write in English. I come from a country whose first language I studied in school but use very little of. What then, is my native language?